“We are all storytellers. We all live in a network of stories. There isn’t a stronger connection between people than storytelling.” - Jimmy Neil Smith, Director of the International Storytelling Center

We all love a great story. If you want to successfully sell yourself, your vision, your ideas, and your products, you must recognize the power of storytelling.

You must become proficient in telling your own story! You do have a story and I'm here to say, it must be told.

Become a story collector and storyteller

How well do you know your own story?

How well are you sharing your story?

If you want to sell, you have to make people want to listen to you AND storytelling is a must have sales skill.

Reflect upon this for a moment... Many of you tell stories just to tell them. However, when you start asking people why they listen to and then share, there's always a reason. It might be to encourage, inspire or sway you into thinking differently.

...

"The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it." - Laurence Sterne

Feedback isn’t just for rookies. As the leader I know you are, it's part of your job to evaluate yourself, solicit feedback, and then hold yourself accountable for how you apply it.

Throughout your sales career, the feedback you’ve earned is necessary for continued growth.

Sales is a competitive and tough. It's not for the weak at heart. The highs are high and the lows are low.

There is a massive difference between a sales rep and a sales professional.

Some may say it's the competitive inner drive. How do sales professionals continually get better?

• They constantly work on their mindset, heartset and skillset
• They are locked in on their goals
• They have relentless determination
• They have uncompromising discipline
• They have a huge desire to outperform their best and others’ best

“Feedback is a gift. Ideas are the currency of our next...

“A great person defines himself; an average person defines others. - Debasish Mridha

Getting to know yourself allows you to tap into the road of happiness as this is critical to your success.

How would you define yourself?

What makes you tick?

How are you continually evaluating yourself to improve your results and become better at what you do?

You live in highly competitive sales world. You're living through some chaotic and crisis filled moments. You must be able to clearly differentiate yourself from all the other empty suits.

If you don't know yourself then how can you help your clients?

This may sound a bit harsh, no one cares about you, at least not at first. You must make them care about you, and you accomplish this with the how you define yourself.

You must be able help them answer these questions:

• Who are you?
• Why should I care?

Uncovering what does define you is your own personal journey, not anyone else's.

DEFINE YOURSELF THROUGH YOUR STORY?

Stories are...

“Having a sense of purpose is having a sense of self. A course to plot is a destination to hope for.”

Bryant H. McGill

As humans we're wired to seek out meaning and purpose in our lives.

I'm a firm believer that having a purpose matters more now than ever before. A sales professional thrives on being a part of a purpose. They live for becoming part of something that really matters, something that really makes a difference to the lives of their clients, their marketplace and their community.

What’s your "endgame" in sales? Is it to make a sale, collect a check or to make a difference?

Today’s selling environment is turbulent and full of turmoil. It's much more challenging and complex than ever before.

In troublesome and tremendous times, sales professionals ask themselves...

• Does my purpose still matter?
• Do I still believe in me like I did before?

In chapter 6 of, Selling From the Heart, I speak to Servant Led Sales Leadership. In a business world where...

“How starved you must have been that my heart became a meal for your ego.”

Amanda Torroni

We are still amid a crisis, however; one pandemic I've become witness to recently is known as SAD.

It's unfortunate but many are suffering from Social Attention Disorder or commonly known as SAD.

It's a rampant epidemic brought about by empty suits, facades and narcissistic digital behavior.

Many are fighting to been seen but how many are truly breaking free to be heard?

Self-absorbed with themselves you love using the word "I" and "Me" Folks, it's not about you!

Sales professionals are not consumed with winning the academy award for best social actor.

They are consumed with capturing the hearts and minds of their clients. They are consumed with helping their clients do better business. They are consumed with placing all their attention on their loved ones, their clients.

SOCIAL ATTENTION DISORDER, IT'S A DISEASE

"Stop trying to impress me. I can make up my own mind about whether I...

“We must give more in order to get more. It is the generous giving of ourselves that produces the generous harvest.”

Orison Swett Marden

Can a giver of heart succeed in a sales world riddled with unscrupulous, fake, and disingenuous people?

Is giving, the secret to long term sales success?

“The reason I’ve been able to be so financially successful is my focus has never, ever for one minute been money”

Oprah Winfrey

Unfortunately, many within the sales focus on the almighty dollar. Ask a group of salespeople, why they got into sales and often you'll hear "for the money".

For the record, I'm all for making money. It allows us to feed our needs, wants and provides for our family. Making money isn’t evil, nor is being wealthy. The evil happens when you place commissions over compassion for people and their visions.

Selling From the Heart professionals lead with heart, dignity and pride, not their wallets.

According to Wharton...

"An act of kindness may take only a moment of our time, but when captured in the heart the memory lives forever."

Molly Friedenfeld

Heart in sales, it's not a dirty word.

Within the sales culture, an image of the heart is often associated with weakness or being too mushy gushy. However, the heart is strong and powerful, the driving force of life, one heartbeat at a time!

Your ability to succeed becomes crippled when there's an unbalanced connection with your heart. Embracing a heart-centered approach to sales rests with your ability to stop, look inward, and reflect upon the course of action you know is the right one, rather than succumbing to external pressures and misaligned sales crapola.

Our heart is the absolute key to survival. Plain and simple, if our heart stops beating, we die. We know this, so we take good care of it. We exercise, we eat healthy and we try to avoid stress; all in the name of heart-health.

How can you sell from the heart if your heart is...

Marriage problems are relationship problems, they are the result of how two people interact with each other. You may abandon a troubled marriage, but you will still bring the way you interact with others along with you.

Mark Gungor, Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage

If you want a relationship, crave a relationship and it means something to you then you must be direct and intentional about it.

If it looks like a relationship, acts like a relationship, smells like a relationship… it isn’t always a relationship. For all those in sales, management and leadership roles, think about what I just said.

A healthy relationship is when two people develop a connection based on:

• Mutual respect
• Trust
• Honesty
• Support
• Fairness
• Love
• Good communication

Relationships are a necessary part of healthy living, but there is no such thing as a perfect relationship. Relationships take time, effort, patience, respect, giving and caring.

Client relationships are a necessary part of a...

"It's hard to practice compassion when we're struggling with our authenticity or when our own worthiness is off-balance."

Brene Brown

We've all used the term the "B.S. Meter". I'm here to give you a new meter to judge your sales team by, the "Authenticity Meter".

Authenticity is one of the biggest challenges within the sales world. It's a profession riddled with unscrupulous, fake and disingenuous sales reps and managers; that quite frankly many buyers despise them as well as some on their team.

Authenticity separates sales reps from sales professionals. Authenticity separates sales managers from sales leaders.

What is authenticity? It's staying true to who you are, what you do, whom you serve and, most importantly, why you do what you do. To quote Simon Sinek, “It means that the things we say and the things we do are things we actually believe.”

It may sound a bit touchy-feely but look inside yourself as sales is all about building credible, genuine and real...

“Spend a lot of time talking to customers face-to-face. You’d be amazed at how many companies don’t listen to their customers.” - H. Ross Perot

How many of you would agree with the following when it comes to your clients... their needs are constantly changing and it's up to your sales to team to understand hot to help?

How well is your team keeping up with what they need?

Your clients hold the keys to your success. They're no longer at the mercy of you, your team or your company. In fact, they're more interested in the experience your team provides as opposed to the products or services.

I bet what they really crave is clarity, transparency, realness and caring; not vagueness, insincerity, fakeness and a crap ton of excuses.

Client experience goes beyond service.

With a few descriptive words, how would your clients describe the experience they're receiving from your sales team?

Come on, I'm waiting for the words. What would they be?

Are they...